History repeats itself. Even before the humans had their
Eras of Expansion and Descent, other races had built
empires on Etharis. The elves and the dwarves both had
their time, and other, older races did as well. Where the
dwarves of Stehlenwald live today was once the seat of
an ancient empire that surpassed any that have come
since. The name of this empire has been lost, and only
fragmented remains of the oldest stories even hint at the
grand heights that race once reached.
What can be gleaned from the histories of the elves
and dwarves is that at one point a horrible calamity
befell the land, wiping clean any trace of this ancient
empire. The disaster came suddenly and without
warning, and it was believed that nothing survived.
Something did.
When the humans rose to power and began
threatening the elves and dwarves, the Stehlenwald
dwarves were forced to dig deeper into their mountain
strongholds in order to withstand the siege. Deep in the
dark, even below the adamantine that proved to be their
salvation, the dwarves found sealed chambers dating
back to before the cataclysm. With the seal broken, an
ancient spell was lifted and the chambers’ inhabitants
began to stir from their millennia-long slumber.
In the days before the calamity wiped out their
civilization, a group of these “dreamers” foresaw the
danger and came up with a plan to survive it. Time passes differently in dreams, and the ancients sought to
use that fact to free themselves from the flow of time.
Suspended between reality and dreams, sealed deep
underground, they could live in a state of perpetual
slumber for as long as necessary and outlast the disaster
that would wipe out the rest of their kind.
The plan worked, but living for so long within the
dream-world had unforeseen consequences. Upon waking,
the dreamers found that they could no longer differentiate
between dreams and memories, with both fading quickly
from their minds. The result was the emergence of a new
race with no knowledge of their own history, only half-formed images and dream-like impressions of a place and
time that may or may not have existed.
Now the dreamers struggle to adapt in a world that
seems like a waking nightmare. Whatever their history,
they have proven to be quick-witted and strong, able
to learn new tasks and execute them well. Their long
slumber has left them strangely energized and able
to work even beyond the legendary endurance of the
dwarves. Even so, sleep is where the dreamers still feel
most at home, and they have a habit of quickly dozing
off whenever no immediate task presents itself.
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